He was right. The coincidence of the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter in Rome is by no means a settled historical fact. And though it were, the chronological connection with it of the publication of Mark's Gospel rests only on the statement of Irenæus. And, in this statement, he is contradicted by counter statements on the part of Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Epiphanius, and Jerome, which have apparently as much title, as the asseveration to which they are opposed, to be regarded as authoritative and correct. Irenæus's asseveration then must, in the present state of patristic criticism, be held in abeyance. Patrizi contends strenuously that it must be set aside; and reasoning on Christophorson's reading of the text, he fixes on the latter half of the year A.D. 42, or the former half of the year 43, as the date of the publication of Mark's Gospel. This is, however, a mere conjecture of the distinguished Roman chronologist, a conjecture toppling on the point of a critical needle. The conjecture, however, did not originate with Patrizi. The same date is found in the colophon of several respectable manuscripts of the Gospel, including the uncials G KS. In these manuscripts there is an express statement to the effect that the Gospel was published ten years after the ascension of Christ, that is, in the year 43. Storr, long ago, so far agreed with Patrizi and these manuscripts as to contend for a very early date. He supposed that the work was published in Antioch, soon after "the men of Cyprus and "Cyrene," who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, "came to Antioch and spake unto the Grecians, "preaching the Lord Jesus." (Acts xi. 19, 20.) He connected this occurrence regarding some men of Cyrene with the statement in Mark xv. 21, “And they impress one Simon a Cyrenian, who was passing "by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to "bear His cross." Storr thinks it probable that Alexander and Rufus were among the men of Cyrene who went to Antioch; and hence, as he supposes,-Mark's mention of them in connection with their father. This is, however, just another needle point of conjectural criticism. T. R. Birks, also, pleads for an early date of publication. 1 See his Dissertation Quando scripserit Marcus, pp. 36-51 of the 1st volume of his De Evangeliis. Ueber den Zweck der evangelischen Geschichte u. Briefe Johannis, pp. 278 ft. thinks that "the second Gospel was written by John Mark, about "the year A.D. 48, and probably at Cæsarea, with a reference, not "only to Jewish believers, but to Gentile Roman converts, who "would have multiplied there in seven or eight years from the con"version of Cornelius." It is an ingenious conjecture, reverently wrought out, but resting, like Storr's, on not much broader evidence than can rest on the point of another needle. Volkmar, fixing on a later date, is far more definite and positive on the 'point.' "The time of publication," he says, "is easily and “indubitably determined." Easily! Indubitably! How? For the strangest of reasons, reader. Only turn to Mark i. 13, and you have it, half hidden in a mystery, but self revealing to the initiated. Do we not read there that Jesus was "in the wilderness, forty days, "tempted of Satan?" What of that? Why, it is obvious, contends Volkmar, that there must be a deep significance in that particular number of days. Moses too was forty days in the wilderness (Exod. xxxiv. 28). Elijah also was forty days in the wilderness (1 Kings xix. 8). And the people of Israel were forty years in the wilderness (Num. xiv. 33). What could be clearer and more indubitable to the initiated? The days of the Saviour's trial were forty, in order to cast shadows both behind and before. And they obviously therefore foreshadow forty years of trial to His people after His decease on the cross in the year 33, forty years to be succeeded by that glorious coming which was to take place before all the personal disciples of the Lord tasted of death' (Mark ix. 1). Add then 40 to 33, and 'the birth-year of the book's is at once determined -73! This needle has a very sharp point indeed. The critics of the Tübingen school project the date of composition and publication far beyond A.D. 73. They admit that the original Mark of Papias must have belonged to the first century; but they contend that the canonical Gospel, which superseded the original, cannot have been earlier than the second. Köstlin comes to the conclusion that it emerged in the first decade of the second cen tury. Dr. Davidson would date it about A.D. 120.'5 Others of the school would carry the date still farther forward, say to some point or other between A.D. 130 and A.D. 150. 1 Hora Evangelicæ, p. 238. 2 Marcus und die Synopsis, p. 646. 3 Geburtsjahr des Buches."-Marcus, etc., pp. 49, 50. Der Ursprung und die Komposition der Syn. Evv., pp. 384, 385. But this entire theory of the supersession and absorption of the original Gospel of Mark by a fictitious Gospel of the second century rests on another needle point. It rests on the assumption of the soundness of Strauss's theory. It assumes that the mythical interpretation of the Gospel history is substantially correct, though incomplete as originally propounded by its author, and needing for its complement the establishment of the inauthenticity of the four canonical Gospels. Hence the literary task assigned to itself by the school: Let the inauthenticity of the Gospels be made out! There cannot have been miracles. Paulus's method of reducing the supernatural to the natural is absurd and grotesque. Therefore the Gospels we possess cannot be of apostolic origin or authority. They must have originated in a time far removed from the days of the apostles! But the assumption of a fictitious Gospel according to Mark, composed by a well-meaning impostor of the second century, though essential, (along with corresponding assumptions in reference to Matthew, Luke, and John,) to the validity of Strauss's theory, is itself, so far as the scientific determination of the date of our canonical Gospel is concerned, nothing better than a mere unhistorical assumption. It is in fact a critical myth. As unlikely too as it is unhistorical. For where can be found even so much as a needle point's breadth of probability that a Gospel, originated in the apostolic circle, and bearing what was equivalent to the imprimatur of the chief of the original apostles, could, in the course of the second century, be not only unceremoniously, but also unanimously, laid aside, to make room for an upstart composition, written by nobody knows who, but filchingly bearing the honoured name of the genuine original document? How could it happen that all the copies of the original Gospel should have been not only superseded and shelved, but annihilated, so that, at the present day, not a single transcript, or fragment of one, can be found? could it come to pass that, in the midst of the keen conflicts and mutual jealousies that abounded toward the conclusion of the second century, there should be a perfectly unanimous consent that never should one word be written about the substitution of the false for the true Gospel, so that all the records that would likely go down to posterity should be entirely destitute of any note or hint on the subject? How could all these improbabilities become actualities? But are there then no data at all on which an approximate date f may be assigned to the composition and publication of St. Mark's Gospel ? There are. There is nothing indeed, as we have already intimated, that will afford a warrant to fix on any given year or decade of years. But the succession of patristic testimonies back to Papias, as exhibited in the sixth section of this Introduction, makes it certain that the Gospel was in existence, and well known, during the first century of the Christian era. Since, moreover, it is all but certain that the John Mark of the Acts of the Apostles was the writer of the Gospel, and since it is prob able that he was quite a young man' at the time of the crucifixion, and consequently still young when he was assumed by Paul and Barnabas as their ministerial attendant, we may reasonably suppose that he would not defer the composition of his Gospel till he was overtaken by extreme old age. If he did not, then we have something like a foothold on which to reach some data for an approximate date. It is not likely, at all events, that the composition of the Gospel would be deferred to a period later than the year 70, the date of the overthrow of Jerusalem. Indeed it is most unlikely that it would be deferred till that period. If St. Mark was about twenty years of age at the time of the crucifixion, he would be nearly sixty about the year 70. Besides, there seems to be, in the peculiar inter-stratification of the contents of the 13th chapter of the Gospel, (the prophetical chapter,) taken in conjunction with the statement in chap. ix. 1, 'Verily I say unto you, that there be some that stand here, who shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power,' evidence on which we may, with probability, support the conclusion that Mark, at the time he composed his Gospel, connected in his mind, as a matter of 'private interpretation' and expectation, the glorious personal appearing of our Lord with the anticipated destruction of Jerusalem. The precise times and seasons' were not distinctly and minutely unrolled to the eyes of evangelists and apostles. The prophetical perspective did not show the length of the intervals that intervened along the path of the future; and the inspired writers were consequently left, like the prophets of old, to search what and what manner of times' were referred to. This being the case, there is, in the inter-stratification referred to, evidence that increases the probability that the Gospel must have been written before the year 70. There is another incidental item of evidence that leans and leads toward the same conclusion. It is found in the verse which occasioned Storr's theory, viz. chap. xv. 21, "and they impress one "Simon a Cyrenian, who was passing by, coming out of the country, "the futher of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross." Why should the evangelist particularize the fact that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus? Obviously, as Grotius remarks, because Alexander and Rufus were living at the time when the Gospel was published. Simon himself seems to have been deceased. His identity is remembered by means of his surviving sons. He would probably be in middle life, or beyond it, when he undertook his journey to the city of his fathers to celebrate the passover. But it was 'the beginning of days' to him; and not to himself only, it would appear, but to all his household. His sons became men of mark in the Christian circle. It would however be quite improbable and unnatural to go forward to a period near the close of the century, for the time of their prominence. A period before the destruction of Jerusalem is far more likely to have been the season when they were conspicuous. At all events, we could not, with the least shadow of probability, pass the terminating decades of the first century, and go over into the second. The Tübingen date must of necessity be abandoned. § 10. THE PLACE OF THE GOSPEL'S PUBLICATION, AND THE As to the place where the Gospel of St. Mark was originally circulated, nothing can be positively determined. We have seen, incidentally,' that Storr conjectured it to be Antioch, and that Birks conjectured it to be Cæsarea. The ancients in general assumed it to be Rome. Chrysostom, however, in the introduction to his Homiletical Exposition of Matthew, mentions another tradition, which seems, nevertheless, never to have obtained extensive currency :— "Mark is said (Aéyerai) to have composed his Gospel in Egypt at "the solicitation of the disciples there." Modern critics in general acquiesce in the common opinion of the ancients. Some of them sup pose that we have in the considerable list of Latinisms that is found in the Gospel,2 internal evidence in favour of the tradition. 1 Pages lxiii., lxiv. * Such as κεντυρίων (centurio), ξέστης (sextarius), σπεκουλάτωρ (speculator), τὸ ἱκανὸν ποιεῖν (satisfacere. |